


the green frog indiscreetly croaks

by nimagine



Series: and all around you a vast terrain [2]
Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types
Genre: (that's a tag because please GOD i hope this is a trend that catches on), Blood Magic, Families of Choice, Gen, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Magic, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Past Abuse, Sibling Bonding, Witchcraft, overthinking literally everything, witch boy dami
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-17
Updated: 2019-11-17
Packaged: 2020-12-20 20:10:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 15,893
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21062498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nimagine/pseuds/nimagine
Summary: If deranged future selves are to be believed, Damian will, at some point in his future, sell his soul to the devil in return for the mantle of the Bat and burn along with Gotham in hellfire. And sometime after Tim goes to university, he'll become a hyper-controlling omniscient Orwellian Batman completely drained of all hope or humanity that kills future Damian.Despite this, they do their best to be a family of two.______________Damian attempts to do blood magic and it, predictably, goes very wrong. Tim and Damian work together to figure out what happened and how to reverse the spell's effects.





	1. the best stories always start with blood magic and pizza

**Author's Note:**

> this work is a direct sequel to my other fic, [turn the maze inside out](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19082443), which is an exploration of the grey areas of emotional abuse and neglect following the publication of batman #71. i recommend you read that before reading this, but you can probably read this on its own, just know that (spoilers for my fic?) damian is living with tim in this one. 
> 
> the title is, once again, cribbed from [“Letting Go” by Gloría Anzaldúa](https://neededmedicine.tumblr.com/post/153014239196/letting-go-by-gloria-anzald%C3%BAa). i send my apologies her way once again for applying her activism poetry to batboys being stupid.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> it begins, with a lot of memes and overthinking right out of the gate.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> content warning in this chapter for a depiction of self harm (for blood magic) and references to self harm (not for blood magic).
> 
> witch boy dami wishes you a happy spooky season!

If omens of the future are to be believed (and these days he believes in very little), Damian will, at some point, sell his soul to the devil in return for the mantle of the Bat and burn along with Gotham in hellfire. Well, “omen” may not be the correct word. But it is more concise than “a future version of my brother that traveled back in time and is also apparently responsible for my unhinged future self’s death.” 

Damian paints the last rune on the protective sheeting covering his closet floor with his right hand, checks it against his notes in his left hand, and stands. 

Such a dark omen may stop someone more cowardly than Damian from ever experimenting with the dark arts. But he knows there are other ways to do magic, to bend the rules of reality, without swearing fealty to a higher power.

Around him is an array of symbols in language after language from his travels around the world. He rarely interacts hands- on with spells, preferring to study them from a safe distance, but he has every confidence that his planning and execution will be sufficient for success in this project.

If not, then, well. ( _ Do it correctly the first time or not at all _ , he hears in his mother’s, father’s, grandfather’s voice.  _ It’s okay to mess up. Then you learn something for next time _ , he hears in Richard’s voice.) If he fails, he will try again. 

Any witch worth their salt bears some symbol of protection. Whether summoning spirits or not, it is always wise to be prepared for contact with the supernatural. Damian is wearing his Robin suit. The way he sees it, being Robin was his ticket to resurrection. If anything he owns gives him spiritual standing, it is this symbol. 

Damian ensures that all elements are present: the blossoms of dogwood, rosemary, and yarrow, devil’s shoestrings, the tempered iron, the moonstone and copal, the burning ceremonial incense. A patchwork collection for a patchwork spell.

In the center of the circle is a dead bat. Damian carefully arranges the creature’s limbs, stretching out the wings and legs and pressing pins through to the plush carpet beneath his plastic lining.

Bats were (are?) used for all sorts of spells in traditions all over the world. In Europe, they were added to witch’s potions for flight. In Haiti, bat blood was imbibed for strength and vitality. Sicilians used bat corpses to ward away evil, and Samoans followed the bat as a symbol of war. Damian is using this bat as a symbol of liminality--a mammal, yet capable of flight. With this, he plans to open a liminal space of his own and to end the liminal state of another. 

Bat corpses, thankfully, are close to hand in his father’s cave. He wonders if the man knows how good bats are for spells. Probably.

Damian pushes the last pin through, and his hands hover for a second as he runs his eyes over the corpse, now in a spread eagle position, the wings spanning almost twelve inches. 

Satisfied with his handiwork, Damian checks the time. Timothy will not be home for a while, surely preoccupied with tying up his role at Wayne Enterprises. Since Timothy never enters Damian’s room anyway, let alone his closet, there should be no risk of an interruption. 

From the landing outside, Damian can hear Titus whimper and paw at the door. 

“Titus, quiet,” Damian calls. 

Damian kneels in the center of his array, sits back on his heels, and flips through his  _ Cheese Viking _ notebook to the page where he constructed the incantation, painstaking translation notes in the margins. 

Now for the final step. 

Damian removes one of his gauntlets, pulls his one of his favorite knives--an antique kukri--from his waistband, and draws it across the meat of his palm, hand steady. He watches with detached fascination as the flesh parts and fills with beads of blood. He flips his hand and holds it over the center of his arrangement. A drop of blood splashes into the center of the circle, on top of the dead bat. 

The candles flicker in unison, and Damian thinks he hears a faint whisper, but he knows this isn’t right, isn’t enough. More, then. He rolls up the sleeve of his uniform, baring his wrist. Damian draws blood again, his blade locating a vascular but non-lethal area with ease. 

Now, with a steady flow dripping onto the circle, smoke begins to rise, and the room around him seems to creak and twist. The whispers are clearer now, seeming to come from all directions. Damian can hear Titus barking and whimpering two rooms away. 

This, finally, is the moment. Damian holds his notes in his free hand, takes a deep breath, and begins to speak. 

“Are you sure you don’t want to take your name placard with you?” Tam asks, hands shoved in her skirt pockets. 

“Nah, it would just sit around the house and collect dust.” Tim adjusts his grip on the box in his arms. 

Tam gives a pointed look to the matching set of Wind Waker Nendoroids peeking out of the box. They were the single thing that Tim ever had on his desk that hinted at any kind of personality or personal interest, and even then, he usually arranged his desk so that only  _ he _ could see them. 

Tim shrugs. 

Tam carefully sets the placard in the box. “Here, just… take it, alright? We’re going to… well, most of the board won’t, but  _ I’m _ going to miss you.”

Tim huffs. “Thanks, Tam. You deserve to be more than a PA. I’ll see you around, alright?”

He starts to back towards the door.

Tam sighs. “Yeah. Just--promise me that you’ll take care of yourself, alright? And your brother, too. Go finish your education or find a hobby or something. Other than the one you already have.”

Tim nods. “Of course,” he says, with as much sincerity as he can muster. 

On the drive home, he wonders if he should pick up some pizza or something to celebrate being home more often. Building security apps from home isn’t the most glamorous of jobs, but it’s more than sufficient to keep the two of them running and won’t keep Tim away from Damian as much as being a CEO did. And yes, he needs to work, because with the Drake fortune long since dried up and with Tim not wanting to take money from Bruce, he needs  _ something _ to fuel their extremely expensive nighttime lifestyle. Damian never complains about anything more serious than Tim’s decór or dietary choices, but if Tim is going to be any better than Damian’s other… mentors… he has to spend time with Damian outside of any training or crime crusading. Dick, Jason, Steph, Cass—everyone else is gone, driven away from Bruce or simply busy with their own problems. It’s just the two of them now. 

Pizza for sure, Tim decides. 

He stops at a local pizza shop a couple blocks from home and orders two varieties of their vegetarian pizzas. He’s getting better at understanding Damian’s palate, but it can’t hurt to be safe (or to have leftovers).

As he fiddles with his phone in the waiting area, Tam’s parting words come back to him. Even though he usually has a lot of respect for Tam’s thoughts, Tim doesn’t think he’ll bother with his education. 

Tim understands that taking advice from deranged alternate-future versions of oneself is a terrible habit to get into. A hyper-controlling omniscient Orwellian Batman completely drained of all hope or humanity should be completely off Tim’s list of people to take life advice from. But he can’t help but remember the warning his future self gave him:  _ When you go to university, everything falls apart _ . 

It’s a surprisingly easy thing to reason himself out of, anyway. What purpose could a former Robin have for going to college, anyway, when his connections and experience are more than enough to get him any opportunity he wants?

For now, though, Damian is staying in school, even if he’s miserable doing so, considering he knows all the material and has no friends. But it’s a mandate from Bruce, so go to school he must. Tim pities him, but he doesn’t think advocating for Damian to join him as a highschool dropout is a good look. 

“Tim?” The worker behind the counter calls. 

“Here,” Tim says, and is sure to tip extra.

The food smells amazing. Tim may or may not sneak a slice on the way home. 

“Devilman crybaby,” Tim calls as he pushes open the door, carefully balancing his box of stuff and the pizzas. “Where you at? I come bearing gifts.”

Titus barrels into Tim’s legs. “Whoa boy,” Tim says, just barely managing not to drop anything before he sets his burdens on the couch. 

Tim turns around to pet the dog, but Titus isn’t wagging his tail like he usually does. Alarm bells go off in Tim’s head, and he drops the pizzas on the coffee table. He rubs Titus behind the ears as he looks around the apartment. It’s quiet. Calfred (Cat Alfred) is nowhere to be seen. 

Titus whimpers and runs halfway up the stairs before turning and giving Tim a pleading look. Tim follows, shedding his blazer and loosening his tie, preparing for the worst. 

Security here is top notch, of course, since Tim created it all from the ground up himself. Nothing and no one  _ should _ be able to get in. A tight ball of anxiety forms in the pit of his stomach.

Titus runs the rest of the way up the stairs and makes a beeline for Damian’s bedroom door, which lays across the landing from Tim’s. The dog paws at the door and gives Tim another look. 

Tim listens, his ear almost against the door, and thinks he can hear running water. 

Tim knocks softly. “Damian?” he asks, using his Basic Civilian voice. 

The running water stops. 

“I got pizza, if you want any,” Tim continues. 

Some shuffling. 

Tim is debating whether he should continue his docile facade or just kick the door in, his own security measures notwithstanding, when the door swings open. 

Tim surveys Damian in a picosecond, his mind still in crisis mode. Damian looks fine, if tired--his hands and the cuffs of his hoodie seem a little wet, as if he’d just been washing them. No injuries, no one in the room behind him, at least going by what Tim can see through the door. 

Damian looks up at him with a suspicious expression. “Can you afford me any privacy without assuming that our home has been invaded?”

Tim relaxes and starts unbuttoning his cuffs. “Your dog scared me.” 

Titus licks Damian’s hands and nuzzles his side. Damian’s hands find their way to Titus’ scruff. 

Damian doesn’t offer an explanation, so Tim says, “I wasn’t lying about the pizza. It’s downstairs,” he says, jerking a thumb over his shoulder. 

The glint in Damian’s eyes is barely there, but Tim still catches it. “That is acceptable.” He slides past Tim and bounds down the stairs. Maybe it’s Tim’s continued suspicion, but he could swear that the kid is moving slower than usual. 

Tim would almost,  _ almost _ write this all off as nothing if it weren’t for Titus, who still looks nervous as he trails after his boy.

The ball in Tim’s stomach continues to eat away at him as he settles on the couch and flips the two boxes open. Damian grabs a piece and curls up against the armrest. Tim nibbles on a slice, his appetite somewhat abated. 

“It went well, then?” Damian says between bites. 

Tim nods. “It was fine. Bruce is helping everyone with the transition.”

“That’s good,” Damian says primly, then falls silent.

Tim turns on the TV and finds something on YouTube to fill the space. An LP of the latest Resident Evil will do. Now that he’s on the couch, Tim can feel his eyelids drooping, the exhaustion of the past--when did he last sleep for eight hours?--catching up with him. 

Tim was already operating at full capacity before he went and took in a whole teenager, and he’s suffering for it now. But the criticisms of Bruce’s parenting style float around in his head. He refuses to slack. Having Damian around helps Tim to remember to eat at least once a day, anyway. 

Throughout the meal, Damian messes around on his phone, giving only passing attention to the TV. Tim strokes the top of Titus’ head, determined to stay awake and vigilant. Their half-eaten pizzas begin to congeal. 

In what Tim estimates as less than an hour, Damian drops off, nuzzling his face into the armrest. Tim turns down the volume on the TV and starts to put the food away. 

When everything is stowed in the fridge, he comes back to the living room, hovering over Damian, giving him another scan. 

Everything seems the same as before, though Damian’s skin looks ashy in the artificial light from the TV. Tim is about to find a blanket to drape over his little brother when he freezes, noticing something peeking out from under Damian’s sleeve. 

He leans close, careful to remain silent and hold his breath, knowing that Damian will wake at the slightest provocation. 

It looks like a bandage, white gauze. When he leans in just a little further, as close as he dares, he can see bright red blood seeping through in a straight line. 

He knows for a fact that that wasn’t there at breakfast. If Damian was injured at school, surely he or Bruce would know about it by now. Clearly, Damian doesn’t want Tim to know about it. Did Damian sneak out as Robin? Tim wants to say yes, but his gut doesn’t agree. From the angle and precision of what he can see of the wound from where he stands, it’s unlikely that it happened while Damian was wearing his armored gauntlets. On top of that, it’s unlikely that Damian would have had time to change into his Robin suit, sneak out, get injured, sneak back in, and change into civilian clothes, all after he got home from school  _ and _ before Tim got home. 

And that leaves...what, exactly?

The only thing Tim can think of is self-harm, and almost reflexively he looks at his own faded scars along his wrist where he’d rolled up the cuffs of his button-down. They’re white and barely visible, especially beneath all the much more noticeable scars from Robin-ing. No one has ever noticed them, or if they have, they’ve never commented. 

Tim perches on the opposite arm of the couch from Damian. He leans forward and rests his elbows on his knees. He swallows.

Tim isn’t exactly guardian of the year if Damian is struggling this much and this is the first he’s hearing of it. He knows what it’s like.

Is this an ongoing problem from before Damian moved in with Tim, or is this a new development? If it’s the latter, Tim isn’t sure he can keep having Damian here in good conscience. Tim would have to ship him back to Bruce. And where would that leave Tim? How can he explain this to Bruce? And Damian would be right back where he started, in a house where he’s realized he feels unsafe and unhappy. 

Tim stops. He breathes. He’s getting way ahead of himself, he thinks in Steph’s voice. The most straightforward thing to do would be to ask Damian instead of assuming. It would give Damian a chance to talk about how he’s doing and keep Tim from taking drastic and/or unnecessary measures. 

That said, Tim can’t see what other explanation there could be. And it even makes a little sense, too--Damian has been a little quieter, a little more subdued lately. Tim has been chalking it up to missing his dad, or Alfred, or even his cow. But maybe it’s worse than Tim thought, or maybe it’s something else entirely. 

Tim shakes his head, clearing it again. He can’t get sucked into a downward spiral. He has to  _ do _ something, fix this. It’s good that Tim will be home more often. He can help.

He focuses on Damian again. Titus is curled up against the couch right beneath Damian, snuffling in his sleep. Gotham lights shine faintly through the bulletproof glass, and the TV continues to cast an odd light on Damian’s slack face, the faint noise of the video echoing off the high ceilings. 

Tim decides to find a blanket to drape over Damian, wake the kid up in a couple hours for patrol, and then bring this up in the morning. Tomorrow is a Saturday, so Damian will be around the house, unless he has other plans, which he has increasingly fewer of these days (Tim should have noticed before now). Despite his anxiety, Tim yawns. He’ll need to lay down for a bit before he can come up with a suitable plan. He hauls himself off the couch, his muscles aching.

Tim is across the room digging a blanket out of a linen closet when he hears a jumpscare in the YouTube video, loud even with the volume turned down, accentuated by a screech from the letsplayer. 

Damian gasps. 

Tim snickers through the sleep-deprived fog, even as he feels a twinge of sympathy for the kid getting such a rude awakening. 

Titus barks in alarm, and Tim jolts, his vision laser-focusing on the couch. His blood turns to ice, jolting him alert in an instant. 

Damian is surrounded by a haze, like heat distortion over asphalt. He scrambles to his feet, his hands moving helplessly through the whatever-it-is. 

Tim rushes over, his mind racing. It looks magical if he had to guess. He can feel a sort of gravity pressing down on him--as if he were having sleep paralysis--the closer he gets. 

“Damian--”

“I don’t know,” Damian says, clutching at his chest. 

Then suddenly, it’s over. And Damian has a slender black band around his neck. 

“Are you okay?” Tim asks, heart still pounding. 

Damian hesitates. “Yes, I… I’m fine.” Since he’s watching for it, Tim notices Damian pulling down the sleeves of his hoodie.

Calfred comes back from whatever pocket dimension he went to and rubs against Damian’s legs. Tim takes this as a good sign. 

Damian reaches up and runs his fingers along the necklace. When he grabs the necklace and tries to raise it over his head, the haze comes back and Damian yelps, yanking his hands away. He wrings them, taking deep, steadying breaths. Tim takes this as a bad sign.

“Oh boy,” Tim says. 

He reaches out to touch the choker when Damian twists away. 

“You don’t know what touching it could do to you,” Damian protests. 

Tim purses his lips. “Fine. But at least let me see it up close.”

As Tim leans close, leaning a hand on Damian’s shoulder for balance, his eyes scanning for details, Damian speaks. 

“We should get help.” 

Tim nods absently. Across the board, Robins tend to avoid dealing with magic, at least on their own. 

“I’ll text Raven,” he says, stepping away and pulling out his phone. Damian has his own phone out, typing slowly. 

  
  
  


~Raven~   
  
**Today** 9:24 PM   
heyyyy i need kind of a big favor   
  
****hello tim.   
  
****this is a surprise.   
  
oh god please dont murder me i should have definitely asked how you're doing first   
  
****a good surprise, tim.   
  
oh cool   
  
well here's the scoop. damian just had some weird magic stuff happen to him, and we have no idea why.   
  
do you think you could play magic doctor and diagnose him?   
  
****im busy at the moment.   
  
****i wont be available for two days at least.   
  
****sorry about that, tim.   
thats totally fine. So far it doesnt seem urgent    
  
****then ill see ya later, alligator.   
  
ajgjkrhklgfhkllk wow i miss you?   
  
****you too. take care.   
  
ofc, be safe ^_^

Out of the corner of his eye, Tim can see Damian sneaking nervous glances at Tim as they both text. Tim pretends not to notice, hoping that Damian will bring it up himself.

He doesn’t.

“Raven says she can come by in a couple days to look at it,” Tim reports, putting his phone away. “I think we should go down into the Nest to run some tests on it.”

“Father wants us to come to the cave,” Damian says. “He says that Zatanna is willing to look into it.”

This makes Tim irrationally angry, but he sternly tamps down on the emotion. 

Damian has been meeting with Bruce semi-regularly. From what it sounds like, Bruce is trying really hard. Tim can even see some of this on patrol--Bruce has been more courteous, more even-tempered than usual. 

Bruce has only reached out to Tim once since that morning he came by Tim’s apartment, and Tim turned him down. Tim is already struggling to stay on top of everything. He fears that another Bruce-related breakdown will make Tim drop one or all of the plates he’s juggling, and he can’t afford that now that he’s responsible for Damian. 

“Why did you tell him?” he says in the most even tone he can manage. 

“I didn’t,” Damian says. “I told Jon, and he told Father.”

“Snitch,” Tim mutters. This is the first he’s hearing that Damian still talks to Jon. Although maybe he doesn’t, and for whatever reason Damian decided now was the perfect time to rejuvenate that particular relationship. 

Tim wonders if Jon knows anything about the cut on Damian’s arm.

“Let’s go then,” Tim says, defeated, and looks around for his keys. 

As he looks, he remembers that Bruce will definitely, definitely want to run a scan on Damian to make sure he’s unharmed. There’s no way he won’t discover what Tim already has.

He isn’t sure he wants to outright admit to Damian that he knows about the arm, because he would much rather Damian divulge that information (and any other wounds and how he got them) on his own, because if Tim tries to pry, that’s the surest possible way to get Damian to shut down. On the other hand, if Damian is found out by Bruce, that would probably be much, much worse than if Tim confesses to his discovery. 

Then again, Damian knows as well as Tim that Bruce will want to do a full physical, and he seems willing to go to the cave. Tim wonders if all of this is part of some scheme of Damian’s. While Damian is more than capable of schemes, it isn’t his preferred MO. 

Tim decides that if Damian has opened this can of worms, he’s going to have to lie in it, but Tim will be standing by in case he needs to pull Damian out. 

Damian is standing by the door when Tim is patting himself down for phone, wallet, and keys. The memory of the cut Tim found sends a pang of actual pain down Tim’s own arm, shocking him a little. 

“You’re okay?” Tim asks again, a last ditch effort to get Damian to fess up on his own before Bruce inevitably susses him out. 

“Always,” Damian sniffs.

Well, that’s that then. 

Damian has a plan, but it’s not a very good one. 

He knows that once his father heard of the magical incident, it was over. He should have known better than to try and talk to Jon about it. Now Bruce will demand to inspect Damian and do his own investigation into the cause. His protectiveness of his Robins never fails. 

Thus, even though Damian absolutely does not want Father’s help, he knows resistance is pointless. Much like his own foreboding future, he cannot prevent this visit, but he can try to control it. Thus, he plans on debuting a new app he’s been developing to override the cave’s computer systems remotely. He originally figured it would be to get into files that he doesn’t have access to, but now he plans to use it in a way that he didn’t originally intend, but should still work. 

He’s going to fake the medical scans. 

As he and Timothy drive to the cave, Damian stays on his phone, carefully adding line after line of code to his app. 

Damian spares a glance at Timothy, who hasn’t spoken since they left the apartment. His eyes are locked on the road, his face an unreadable mask. 

Anxiety tightens Damian’s chest. He can tell that Timothy suspects something, but he’s not sure how much. There’s layers of information that Damian has been hiding, and for good reason. He doesn’t like his prospects of hiding his activities from both his father and Timothy, arguably the two of the best investigators among the Bats, but he doesn’t have any choice in the matter. 

When they arrive in the cave, Bruce is already there, dressed in sweats and wearing an expression of grim focus. 

“Damian, Tim,” he greets eloquently, and walks to the medical bay, clearly expecting them to follow, and they do. “Zatanna will be here shortly. In the meantime, I want to check Damian for any problems.”

Bruce is already booting up the medical scan. Damian, under the guise of sending a text, activates his hack as he hops up onto the cot. 

The medical scan program crashes entirely. Bruce makes a sound of annoyance. He reboots it, but it crashes again. 

This was not Damian’s intention. Because now…

“Tim, look into the software and see what’s wrong. Damian, stay there,” Bruce says, walking over to where they keep the supplies. He stops, then, and presses a hand to his face, and turns to Tim, who has started to move towards the main computer. “I mean, Tim, can you check the software?”

Tim gives Bruce a strange look. “Sure,” he says neutrally, and walks off. 

Damian knows that this isn’t good. Timothy will be able to find the foreign program easily and realize they were hacked. While Damian has measures in place to ensure that the hack can’t be traced to his phone, the unfortunate truth is that Timothy is so well-versed in programming languages that he can recognize each of their individual styles and would probably realize that Damian was behind it. 

Bruce returns to Damian, carrying a box that Damian knows has various diagnostic tools in it. He pulls out a stethoscope and pulls up the back of Damian’s shirt to press the cold metal into his back. 

“Inhale,” he commands, and Damian does. 

He can only hope that Father will be satisfied with measures that won’t require baring more skin. Damian fights the urge to pull his sleeves down further, since he knows it would be a dead giveaway to Bruce that Damian is hiding something.

Unfortunately, Damian does not get his wish. Once he’s satisfied with listening to Damian’s heart and breathing, Bruce pulls out the blood pressure cuff. 

“Roll up your sleeve,” he orders. He is standing on Damian’s left side. To roll up the sleeve on his right arm would get Bruce’s attention that something is being concealed. 

Damian decides his only choice is to gamble. He angles the inside of his wrist to face toward his side and grabs for the hem of his sleeve as well as the edge of the bandage underneath. He slides both of them up as smoothly as possible, bracing himself for the stinging pain of ripping the bandage off, but he’s relieved when it doesn’t come. 

He manages to get his sleeve all the way up his arm. Thankfully, the bandage partially unraveled on the way up, so it’s not cutting off his circulation. Bruce wraps the cuff around his arm, seeming not to notice that Damian is carefully keeping the inside of his wrist out of view. 

“Fixed,” Timothy says from the computer. 

Damian hides his relief and surprise. Either Timothy didn’t notice anything, or he did notice, but is choosing to keep his discovery to himself for some reason.

Bruce grunts and notes Damian’s blood pressure, then removes the cuff. Damian pulls his sleeve back down as casually as possible. 

“Go ahead and run the program again,” Bruce says. “If you would,” he adds. 

Timothy seems to roll his eyes slightly but launches the program. Damian waits, wondering if Timothy has actually set the program to rights, ensuring Damian’s downfall, or if he saw what Damian was trying to do and has given him a free ticket out. 

The program runs, scans Damian, and declares that he has no detectable injuries. 

Damian watches Timothy. 

His brother looks bewildered for a second. 

“Let me run it another time just to make sure,” he mutters, barely audible from across the cave, and runs the program again. 

Once again, Damian is cleared by the machine. 

“Thanks, Tim,” Bruce says. 

Damian lets out a sigh of relief internally. It seems he’s eluded discovery for now, at least from Bruce. Timothy is another matter, but that could be dealt with separately.

“Are you sure that there was nothing that triggered this?” Bruce asks. Damian’s hands grip the edge of the medical cot underneath him. The last thing he wants is for his father to become dissatisfied with his verbal interrogation and start looking for physical evidence again. 

“Yes,” Timothy replies in a deadpan. When Bruce grunts and looks away for a moment, Timothy’s eyes flit to Damian’s sleeves, then up to his face, before returning to Bruce. 

Bruce looks to Damian for confirmation, and he nods in agreement. 

“It just happened,” Damian says levelly.

“Zatanna should be here any minute,” Bruce says, after determining that neither of his sons are withholding any information. 

Damian nods and runs his fingers along the choker again, letting the heel of his hand press in a grounding way against his sternum. He can sense Timothy analyzing him yet again, but he ignores it.

As soon as he can shake Timothy and Bruce, he’s going to find his mother. As far as Damian can tell, the only mistake he made was in getting the target wrong. The spell he cast was very specific, referring only to those that shared either covenant or biological blood with him. Damian has only made a covenant with two people, and he knows he didn’t impact those people, so the only options remaining are blood relatives. On top of that, his mother tends to keep useful magical artifacts around (or at least knowledge of them), and might have something on hand that could help him. 

He knows it’s a risk to go to her, but he’s been rewarded by mutual effort with his father. She’s been turning over a new leaf in her own way, changing her methods of operations and goals. He’s willing to give his mother a chance to prove herself again. 

A jet black motorcycle roars into the cave. 

Zatanna is all business. She marches straight over to Damian. 

“Gentlemen,” she greets primly. “No new information?”

“No,” Bruce says grimly. “He seems unharmed, thankfully.”

“That’s good,” Zatanna agrees. She turns to Damian. “Get comfortable, this may take a while,” she says as she raises her hands. 

Damian scoots back on the cot, centering himself. He can see Bruce looking on anxiously over Zatanna’s shoulders, and Tim peering from his perch at the computer.

“You’re crowding me,” she says, pausing and looking back at them. 

“Sorry,” Bruce says, and walks off to the main computer area. 

With the distractions gone, Zatanna’s hands begin to glow, hovering just above Damian’s collarbone. Her eyes close in concentration. 

Out of the corner of his eye, Damian can see Timothy sit at the computer and run a search while Bruce walks up behind him, clearly uncomfortable. The two of them have a whispered conservation devoid of eye contact. 

He fights the urge to sigh. 

He knows that Timothy has been ignoring Father’s calls. 

“Empty your mind,” Zatanna orders. 

Damian does, obediently, closing his eyes and relaxing. He’s not worried about her finding out anything that she shouldn’t. Spells, from what he knows, aren’t traceable like hacks are. And any information she has should be... enlightening. 

He’s not sure how much time has passed when Bruce’s voice pulls Damian out of his meditative state. 

“What else have you been hiding?” Bruce demands.

Damian’s eyes snap open. 

Bruce is holding Tim’s arm in a vice-like grip. Tim’s eyes are wild, confused, and angry. The sleeve of his white button-down, spotted with blood, has been pulled down to reveal a weeping slice. Damian can see from the blue light of the monitors above that the cut is straight, methodical.

Damian’s blood runs cold, time slows down as his chest tightens with fear. 

Has Damian been too wrapped up in his own problems to notice that Tim is struggling that much? What kind of team were they if they could not communicate? Damian knew that Timothy had some kind of ongoing issue, but…

Then he places the exact placement and size of the cut. Left arm, just away from any tendons or blood vessels, and the matching small cut on the meat of his palm.

Oh, shit. 

“Damian, focus,” Zatanna says, her eyes still closed, her hands inches away from the sides of his head. A blush is barely visible on her cheeks. Damian suspects she’s trying not to listen to what is clearly none of her business. 

Damian takes a deep breath and closes his eyes again, tuning out his father and brother. As he does, his right hand wanders to his left wrist and slides under his sleeve. 

There’s nothing there. 

Damian loses time again.

“Bruce,” Zatanna calls. 

Damian blinks his eyes open.

Then Timothy and Bruce rush back to the cot. They look  _ upset _ . Damian wonders how the rest of that conversation went. However, in proper Bat fashion, Damian can see them both refocus on the issue at hand. 

“I’ve never seen anything like this,” Zatanna explains, either ignorant of or uninterested in decoding Bat facial expressions, “I believe a spirit was bound to him, and I believe that whoever bound this spirit to him used some form of blood magic.”

Damian can see both his father and brother turning this information over in their heads. Timothy, especially, gives Damian a calculating look that Damian does not like. 

“How is blood magic different from regular magic?” Timothy asks in a pointedly innocent tone that does not match the devious look in his eyes. “I’ve always wondered, since the only answers I’ve been able to guess are ‘any magic involving blood’ and ‘magic, but scarier’.”

Damian gives Timothy a blank look, trying to guess what he’s thinking. 

“In this case, it means that magic was performed with someone who shares his bloodline,” Zatanna explains.

Timothy meets Damian’s eyes now, something resigned in his face. Damian gives Tim a look that dares him to say anything. 

“Well that narrows things down,” Timothy says. “He doesn’t share blood with a whole lot of people. Not ones who are living, anyway.”

“Ra’s,” Bruce growls. “He was sighted recently in South America. I should have known he was after Damian again.” 

Bruce turns to the computers, and then turns back to Zatanna for a second. “Thank you.” Then he turns to Tim, puts a hand on his shoulder and gives him an impossibly sad look. “Tim.” Then he turns to Damian. “I’ll find him.”

And then he’s walking away, wholly focused on finding answers. 

“I guess my mother doesn’t exist now,” Damian mumbles grumpily.

Timothy turns to Zatanna, who looks a bit lost without Bruce. He avoids looking at Damian, whose chest tightens even more with dread. Damian, unfortunately, seems to have failed in concealing his spell from his brother; Timothy, fortunately, does not seem interested in snitching. 

“Is this spirit dangerous?” Timothy asks. “What does it do?”

“I’m afraid I can’t answer those questions for sure,” Zatanna says regretfully. “But I don’t think it will have any ill effects unless Damian tries to remove it or break it, as he has already discovered. Of course, if you notice anything new, good or ill, call me. I’ll pass this on to other sorcerers and psychics and see if they know anything.”

“Cool…” Timothy says. “Will anything bad happen if someone else touches it?” 

“Probably not,” Zatanna says with a shrug. 

“Good enough for me,” Timothy says, stepping forward. 

Damian feels his hackles raise, and he twists away. He can’t risk this. “No! What if it passes to you instead?”

Timothy shrugs. “Then I’ll have a black choker, I guess. Become an e-boy.”

“You practically are one already,” Damian grumbles, but lets Tim get close. He figures that Zatanna is trustworthy enough for this, at least. 

“Doesn’t make sense anyway,” Timothy says. “If it’s caused by your blood or whatever, I don’t think I’m at any risk.” His fingers brush the choker. Nothing happens. 

Damian lets out a whoosh of air. 

“Hmm,” Timothy says, his face uncomfortably close. 

“Hmm,” Zatanna echoes. “I suppose that is a good sign, even if it’s not a surprise.”

“What way forward do you see for breaking this… enchantment?” Timothy asks, stepping back out of Damian’s space. 

“I wouldn’t recommend trying anything without knowing what about the spirit or spell that is bound to him. You wouldn’t perform surgery without knowing what needed to be repaired. Let a professional handle this.”

“But who do we get to do our metaphorical x-rays and CAT scans, if not you?”

“I’d recommend someone with more experience in dealing with spirits. You might also try finding out who did this--though it seems your father is already on that,” she says, with a glance at Bruce’s back some distance away.

“Makes sense,” Timothy says absently. “I’ve already called Raven. If she can’t help… I might have someone else. Bruce is covering the culprit angle for now. I doubt Ra’s is responsible, but I’m sure that Bruce will be able to follow other leads.” 

Damian realizes that he hasn’t been nearly as active in this conversation as he probably should be. He should say something, ask something. What’s something practical?

“Should I just carry on as usual until a solution presents itself?” Damian asks. 

“If you want,” Zatanna responds, clearly eager to get out of dodge. “I have to be in France by morning, so I’ll be going now.”

“Cool,” Tim says. “Bye, and thank you.”

Her motorcycle’s loud exit does not rouse Bruce from his furious typing and clicking at the computer.

“Let’s go home,” Timothy says, holding a hand out to Damian, who ignores the help and gets to his feet on his own. 

“Yes, let’s go home,” Damian echoes, dread blossoming even larger than before. 

Tim stews in anger and confusion the entire way back to the car. Damian runs on ahead of him, probably because he’s a little coward. 

The look on Bruce’s face when he saw the cut on Tim’s wrist was awful in every way imaginable. Pity, guilt, a touch of disgust, confusion, all of it makes Tim want to melt into a puddle forever and ever amen. He doesn’t want to make eye contact with Bruce again any time soon. Maybe he can ask Zatanna to wipe the memory from Bruce’s mind. 

It sucks so bad, because this obviously wasn’t him. Tim was never this messy and careless when he engaged in self harm, even at his most unhinged. And now that it’s something that’s firmly behind him and handled, Bruce finds out in the stupidest way possible and  _ does _ it even count as “finding out” if it’s a fluke?

_ How can you take care of Damian when you can’t even take care of yourself? _ Bruce asked. 

That’s kind of the worst part. Now Bruce is going to find more and more reasons why Tim isn’t suited to take care of Damian, and all the hard work he and Damian have done is going to unravel. 

No, he’s getting ahead of himself again. He needs to focus on the present.

The present. He wonders if Damian knows what he’s done. He wonders if this is something that can only happen to him or if it can happen to others. Did Damian transfer the wound on purpose to keep from getting caught? When, exactly, did the shift happen? As far as he can tell, the most he can do is get him and Damian on the same page and work forward from there. 

He comes back to the car where Damian is curled up in the passenger seat, typing on his phone. Tim gets the sense that he’s waiting for Tim instead of charging into a fight for once, which is refreshing. Or maybe he’s just tired. Tim certainly is. Though more likely, he’s waiting for Tim to reveal exactly how much he knows, which likely means that there is more that Damian is trying to hide. 

Since Tim has already figured out that Damian did some kind of blood magic on himself that causes wounds to show up on other people, Tim doesn’t feel great about what else Damian might have up his sleeve. Ha. Up his sleeve. 

“You owe me,” Tim says as he slides into the driver’s seat and puts the car in drive.

“Perhaps,” Damian says coyly. “You seemed confused by the scan clearing me. That means that you got it working properly and you were more than prepared to throw me to the wolves, had there not been supernatural interference.”

“Look,” Tim says, keeping his eyes firmly on the road, “I wasn’t going to snitch on you, but I wasn’t going to actively lie for your sake either.”

“Thanks a lot,” Damian mumbles. 

“You deserve worse,” Tim snarls, surprising himself. “No, that’s not--sorry.” He sighs, trying to find his center again. “What is your plan, exactly?” Tim asks neutrally. 

Damian looks over at Tim, his face blank. “My mother might have some answers about the spirit causing this,” he offers eventually. 

Well, that’s fine then. Damian is likely not planning something with Talia, because if he was, he wouldn’t be telling Tim about it. That means that whatever is going on, Damian isn’t on top of it. “I haven’t spoken to Talia in ages,” Tim says. “I can’t remember if she has on ongoing reason to be pissed at me or not.”

“What?” Damian snaps. “You’re not going.”

Tim tosses Damian an annoyed glance. “Yeah, because I’m going to let you go see your mother, who has had previous success in killing you, by yourself.”

Damian’s face twists. “I’ve handled her plenty of times since without  _ your  _ help. And I’ve seen what a mess you are lately. I’m not sure what help you would be in this state.”

Tim barely restrains a full-body flinch. He focuses on the road, trying to decide which thing he wants to say isn’t a knee-jerk response. 

“Sorry,” Tim says eventually. “Bringing up your death was probably...not good.” And that’s all he can manage.

Damian takes some time to formulate his reply. “I meant to say that you seem overworked, and I don’t want to add to that.”

“Yeah.” 

Tim pulls into the apartment’s parking garage, and they pack up and head inside. When they’re fully inside with the door closed, Tim points at the couch. Damian huffs as he pets Titus, but sits, seeming to be hiding a nervous fidget by scratching behind the dog’s ears. 

First, Tim pulls a basic medical kit out from the bathroom, and then sits gingerly on the edge of the couch and starts treating and wrapping the laceration on his arm. Calfred blinks at Tim from his hiding place behind the TV in a way that feels understanding, commiserating even. Tim wonders, briefly, if the cat can sense the magic stuff going on. 

Damian seems to be getting more and more antsy. Tim figures he should just get this over with. 

“Damian,” Tim grinds out. He clenches and unclenches his left hand, his eyes flitting over the bandage over and over. “Just answer yes or no: did you do blood magic on yourself?”

Titus huffs loudly and plops onto the ground in front of Damian, who looks like he’s swallowed a bug.

“I didn’t mean to do it on myself,” Damian hisses after a moment. 

Tim exhales, some of the tension bleeding out of his body. “Thank fuck.” He finishes wrapping his arm and packs the kit away. 

“This is ideal for you? Really?”

“Well when I saw you’d clearly taken a knife to your wrist, I came to the much more obvious conclusion that your mental health is tanked. Though I have to say, now that I think about it, I’m not sure blood magic is a good sign either!” Tim snaps, his words coming out in one breath. 

“You think I would be so pathetic as to mutilate myself for no reason?” Damian hisses. “I would not stoop to such depths.” 

He seems to think better of the words the second they’re out, and he snaps his mouth closed, but he doesn’t take it back either, his little fists clenched at his sides. 

Tim takes deep breaths, willing himself not to lose his temper completely. “You scared the shit out of me, Damian. Just…” Tim sighs. “Blood magic. Why the  _ fuck _ would you do that. Do you even know how?”

“Of course I do, I’m the heir to the mantle of the Bat. And I have my reasons.”

“Now would be a great time to come clean then, because we have to figure out how to fix this spectacular problem you’ve created.”

Damian snarls wordlessly, crossing his arms. 

“Show me your wrist,” Tim commands. 

Damian does without protest, thankfully. As Tim expected, it’s completely bare, healed up quite nicely. 

“Did you mean for this to happen?” Tim says, holding up his own arm. 

“No,” Damian says, and there’s enough guilt in his expression that Tim believes him. “I don’t… I don’t know what this is. Or how any of this happened.”

“I guess that’s good…” And it is. If Damian intentionally forced Tim to take punishment on his behalf…. Tim sinks back into the couch, wanting so, so badly to just sleep and stop thinking about this. “Damian… just… please, tell me why.” He waits, looking up at the dark ceiling, the shadows changing shape with the passing traffic outside. 

“It...it was to help someone. To save someone,” Damian says quietly, after maybe a minute passes. 

Tim nods, not looking at him. His anger from earlier is already fading, inaccessible and foreign and locked away once again, but he still doesn’t want to be around Damian right now. “Anyone I know?”

Damian doesn’t answer. 

Tim figures this is probably the most he’ll get for now. Damian never responds well to being pressured. He’ll have to take his next step based on the information he already has. 

Bruce is looking for an aggressor who cast the spell, so that’s him out of the way, and who knows, maybe he’ll find something useful even though he’s blind to a major component of what’s happening. Going off the whole “blood magic” context, Tim guesses that Damian wants to see Talia because it’s some kind of (blood) family issue. Or who knows, maybe Talia has hidden talents as a sorceress. She’s a powerful woman regardless, and probably has some kind of resource or lead for them. He just really doesn’t look forward to her special brand of mind games. 

“So, when are you going to see your mom?” Tim asks. 

“As soon as possible,” Damian says, which Tim guesses means ‘as soon as you release me from this uncomfortable conversation.’ Tim appreciates that Damian at least has enough respect for Tim to not go storming off in the middle of a conversation anymore. He’s come a long way. 

Clearly not far enough, though, if he thinks fucking  _ blood magic _ is an acceptable way to solve his problems. Or someone else’s problems, presumably. 

“I’m going with you,” Tim insists. He cuts off a protest from Damian. “This is not optional. We don’t know enough about how this works, who else you can pass injuries to and when. And I’m guessing you want to keep all of this from Bruce?”

Tim glances at Damian, whose arms are crossed tightly around his torso. “Obviously,” he mumbles. 

“Then I’m definitely going with you. You need backup, and as long as I don’t think it’s life or death and there’s no one else we can call, I won’t snitch on you.” The Robins are usually quick to help each other keep things from Bruce, and Tim hopes to induct Damian into that tradition if he hasn’t already. “Plus, since it looks like your injuries pass to me, it’s in my best interests that you get your ass kicked as little as possible.” 

Damian harrumphs but seems to accept this. “It is settled then. I’ll pack us provisions and suit up.” He gets up off the couch, but then hovers near Tim.

Tim clears his throat, taking advantage of the hesitation. “And I need you to tell me everything. Any time you get injured, or stop being injured, and whether there’s anything else you haven’t told me about. I’ll figure this out.”

“If I don’t first.”

“Promise me.”

Damian scowls, ever the recalcitrant little bastard, but nods. “Of course. And… and you will tell me everything that you experience as well.”

“Sure thing.” Tim gets up, wincing at the sound of his knees creaking. He’s positively ancient these days. 

Before he can step away, Damian stops him with a hand on his arm. 

“I’m sorry about your arm. It was not my intention,” Damian says, eyes looking somewhere past Tim, his mouth carefully pushing out every syllable. 

Tim nods. This much he can accept. “I believe you. Now let’s go get it fixed.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hang on guys i swear im gonna figure out how to do linked footnotes so that i can cite my sources but until then you'll have to wait... sorry...


	2. goliath is cute in this one

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Damian and Tim go pay Talia a visit. Things could be better, but they could also be worse.

When Goliath takes off, Damian probably wakes up half the people sleeping in the city below with his triumphant yell. He can’t help it. It’s been so long since he flew with Goliath, and he’s missed the sensation. It’s also been a while since he left Gotham--all the trouble with his father has kept him trapped here. Timothy too. This will be good for them. 

He glances for a second at Timothy, behind him, and is shocked to find his brother looking at him with what might be fondness. Hard to tell, since he breaks eye contact immediately. 

Their suits are built for the cold up here, but their unprotected noses are turning red from the chill. 

“His fur is way softer than I always imagined it would be,” Timothy says. His voice is almost slurring from exhaustion. Damian scowls. 

“You could have just asked to pet him,” Damian says, exasperated. When he glances at the rear passenger, Timothy is rhythmically running his fingers through Goliath’s fur, seemingly entranced by the softness. 

“Nah,” Timothy says, yawning. “I figured that you’d trained him to attack me specifically if I got close so that you could have plausible deniability for my death.” 

“Goliath would never,” Damian says quietly, his chest tightening painfully. And it’s true, he’s pretty sure. Unless Timothy ever posed an immediate threat to Damian or Goliath, which Damian has no reason to expect.

When he doesn’t hear a reply, he turns around to find Timothy wilting, eyes closed. 

Damian clasps his hand around Timothy’s wrist, still embedded in Goliath’s fur, tutting. No use in Goliath having to double back and catch the fool when he inevitably falls off. His grip falters when he remembers that he’s holding the wrist with the cut that should by all rights belong to Damian. Timothy doesn’t wake up, though, so he decides that it’s probably fine. 

Damian doesn’t particularly enjoy being reminded of his former antics. They never paint him in a flattering light. Damian feels embarrassed both that Timothy has valid reason to have this suspicion and that this strategy never occurred to Damian. Not that he would have carried it out. There wouldn’t be much satisfaction in pawning off such a crucial kill on Goliath. 

When they’re flying over the Red Sea, Damian releases his grip on Timothy’s forearm and nudges him awake. 

Timothy wakes with all the efficiency of a trained Bat, then relaxes a bit and stretches. “Sorry,” he mumbles. 

“No matter. We’ll be there soon,” Damian says. 

The two of them watch the ground taking shape as they sink beneath the cloud layer. The city of Abha lies nestled in the northeast crook of the Jabal Sawda mountain range, making it a city full of hills and caged in by gondola lines above. 

Damian has been here before, he thinks. Only briefly traveling through. He wonders if Timothy has been here before.

Within minutes, they land on the outskirts of the city, where there are still just enough trees to serve as a cover. The pre-dawn light makes Damian feel sleepy, so he jumps off Goliath as soon as possible to shake the feeling off. After one final yawn, Timothy follows, his landing silent and fluid despite his obvious exhaustion.

As they dismount and stretch, Damian explains the mission. “I have intel on someone I believe is working for my mother. He frequents a tenuously legal marketplace in Abha, usually daily. My plan is to stake it out, identify him, and then hope he leads us back to my mother, or failing that, will tell us where to find her.”

“Sounds reasonable,” Timothy replies. 

“I’m sending you his file now,” Damian says, typing on his gauntlet. He turns to Goliath and rubs him under the ear affectionately. “You stay out here unless I call you.” The dragon-bat grunts and snuffles in reply, and the burst of hot air ruffles Damian’s hair. Damian hides a smile. 

They make their way across the rooftops of the city as the sun rises above the peaks of the nearby mountain range. It’s a more challenging task than it would be in Gotham, owing to the shorter and sparser buildings. Damian leads the way, navigating according to some schematics he has up on his gauntlets. 

By the time the sun is fully above the horizon, the two of them are in place, hidden in the architecture of two respective buildings on opposite sides of a small, somewhat maze-like plaza. 

Damian settles in, resigning himself to several boring hours. 

When the two of them were moving through the city, the streets were mostly bare, save for a handful of morning commuters or wandering vagrants. Now people of all ages and types make their way into the streets. 

The particular market square Damian is looking at is slightly less busy. Here, children tend to stay away. 

Damian pulls up the file on their mark to refresh his memory, even though he memorized the file before they ever left the apartment. 

He doesn’t have a known codename or face, but usually wears casual streetwear and black cloth covering the lower half of his face, while shaggy hair covers most of the upper half. Dark skin, darker hair, average height and lanky build. Seen around the region, usually near or with Talia, seeming to run errands on her behalf. The woman herself disappeared completely from even Damian’s surveillance a few months ago now, so this mark is all Damian has. 

If this lead doesn’t pan out, he’s not sure what his next step will be. 

As the sun continues to rise, more and more vendors set up booths to sell their goods. Nearby doors open, offering an indoor shopping experience. Most of the vendors aren’t so bold as to openly sell illegal wares and maintain some kind of front, selling food or clothes. As money begins to change hands, though, Damian manages to pick out a couple of booths selling crates of fruit that look too light or too heavy in the buyers’ hands and others selling what is clearly bootleg copies of Marvel movies. Hardly anything to cause alarm.

“A vendor at your two o’clock and your five o’clock,” Damian murmurs into his comm. 

“I see them,” Timothy confirms right away. “And I have eyes on the house below and to my left, something’s clearly being smuggled inside those backpacks.”

Damian spots a man moving through the crowd with a black mask covering the lower half of his face. He opens the comm to speak, but Timothy beats him to it. “I see him.”

Their mark easily blends with the crowd, save for his covered face. Damian finds the mask’s theatricality ungainly but can concede that it serves its purpose, since without it Damian would have probably fully identified him by now. 

The man slips into the backpack shop that Timothy noted earlier. The two of them watch patiently as he hurries through a couple of other vendors, picking up various little items that seem innocuous enough and piling them into his new backpack that is clearly running short on space. 

Seeming satisfied, he strides out of the plaza, heading west. They follow, chasing over rooftops or from the streets when the roof doesn’t permit. They can’t completely avoid being spotted by passersby, and it feels wrong. Damian always feels slightly off-balance in broad daylight. He wonders if Timothy feels the same.

Their mark makes a brief stop at a nearby parking lot and mounts a motorcycle before heading straight for the highway out of the west side of the city. 

The roads are wide and cracked, foothills rising on either side. Traffic is light, meaning that the motorcycle can move as quick as it pleases. They barely keep up, boosting themselves along with their grappling hooks when possible.

Soon, they exit the city completely, and the road inclines upward sharper and sharper. Thankfully, there are more trees here, aiding their ability to keep pace using their grapples to hook into trees and follow from about twenty feet behind. The motorcycle, thankfully, is loud enough to cover the soft  _ thunk _ of reinforced steel biting into wood. There are no other vehicles visible on the road at this point, due in part to the sharp curves of the road and the ever-steepening hills. 

Suddenly, he turns off the ever-shrinking highway onto a narrow forest path.

Damian and Timothy land with a quiet rustle close behind. He meets Timothy’s eyes for a second before they both give chase, darting through the sparse undergrowth higher and higher up the side of the mountain.

About fifteen minutes later, the man turns off onto a smaller, rougher path and dismounts, walking alongside his ride, careful to guide it over the rocks and roots peppering the soil. Tim and Damian slow down, careful to be silent now that the hum of the motorcycle’s engine isn’t there to cover them. 

Their mark glances over his shoulder, hitches his backpack higher up on his shoulders. The two of them melt into the forest’s harsh midday shadows, Tim more easily than Damian owing to his subtler color scheme. 

After that, there’s a hike for about thirty minutes up an incline. Sweat is pooling under Tim’s armor, and he has to actively resist the urge to swat the insects buzzing around his ears. He can barely pick out Damian about fifteen feet away, and he waves. Damian makes a point of ignoring him. 

Finally, the man stops in front of a dense copse of trees, brushes off a keypad embedded in the trunk of a particularly thick tree, and enters a code. The ground opens up, revealing a path leading downwards into the earth. Their mark walks his motorcycle into the tunnel. 

Tim can only hope this won’t immediately go to hell. He trusts Damian not to intentionally fuck them over, but the kid isn’t exactly the best decision maker. 

Tim signals to Damian, who nods. They slip in silently just as the passage closes, trapping them inside with the stranger. 

For a second, Tim thinks he’ll keep walking without noticing them, but he pauses, starts to turn. At this, Damian launches forward, his boots grinding gravel into the dirt, more than loud enough to draw attention. 

Their target whips around, eyes wide, already settling into a fighting stance.

Damian lands a kick to the man’s jaw. Tim tackles him while he’s off balance, angling them so that the fall knocks the wind out of him. 

He immediately puts his hands up in surrender, which makes Tim frown. Surrender is weird for a League assassin. 

The man keeps one hand in surrender mode and slowly pulls down his mask with the other. His face is young, dotted with acne and scraggly facial hair. Tim guesses he’s probably Damian’s age, maybe a year or two older. He’s still gasping for breath, but his gaze is going past Tim’s shoulder to where Damian probably is. 

“Damian, it’s me,” he says after a moment, his voice soft and a bit gravelly. 

“I don’t know who you are,” Damian says, but Tim can hear uncertainty there. 

“Yes, you do,” he says, and Tim waits, not loosening his hold. 

After a moment, Damian’s eyes widen, and he steps back.“...Suren,” he says. “Release him, Drake.”

Tim slowly lets go and backs away. He’s still not sold on this guy, whoever he is. 

Suren rolls to his feet and sweeps Damian into a hug. “It’s been so long, Damian!” 

Damian, though he’s scowling and squirming, mostly allows this to happen. 

Tim gawks.

Suren puts Damian down and sizes him up. “You look troubled,” he says. 

“You look… tall,” Damian mumbles, craning his neck to look Suren in the face, scowling.

“Yes, I finally hit my growth spurt,” he laughs, and claps Damian on the shoulder. “You’ll get yours soon. What are you doing here?”

Tim can’t place his accent. It’s unlike anything he’s ever heard before. 

“We seek an audience with my mother,” Damian says, shaking off Suren’s hand. 

Suren starts leading them down the passage, rubbing at the sore spot on his chin. “You’re lucky. She’s barely here these days. Actually, she’s been hoping to speak to you.”

“She has a funny way of showing it.” Damian falls in step with Suren. 

Tim trails behind, still dumbfounded. What a  _ lucky _ break that they’ve happened to run into someone who isn’t going to kill them. Suren isn’t sneaking around like he’s afraid of getting caught helping the enemy. Are they safe here? If so, why all the trouble with getting in?

Tim suspects a trap. Getting here was too easy, tracking Suren was too easy, the fact that Suren happened to be here at all is suspicious beyond words. He’s missing something.  _ Idiot _ , the Damian in his head tells him.  _ You’ve tangled with the al Ghuls how many times, and _ this _ is bewildering you? _

Tim tries to assess whether Damian suspects anything, but the kid seems to be busy trying to stand up as tall as possible.

Seeming to notice that Tim is lagging behind, Suren turns to address Tim. “You’re the one called Drake, yes?”

“Yeah, that’s me,” Tim answers levelly. “How did you meet Damian?” 

“Oh, our families are ancient rivals and I was awoken from a centuries-long slumber to serve my father, so Damian stopped me from ending all human life.”

Tim blinks and looks at Damian. “I can see why you two would get along.”

Damian tutts and increases his pace. Suren shrugs and catches up with him, leaving Tim in the back again, which is fine by him. 

The walls down here are bare, alternating from hewn rock and reinforced steel in a way that suggests the steel is only being used when necessary for structural support. They take several turns through empty tunnels before reaching a decent-sized room with a handful of people playing cards at a small table. 

Playing cards? Tim is getting more and more confused. What kind of organization is this?

“Hey, Suren,” one of them greets. He waves a hand as he passes. 

“My mother has certainly grown lax about disciplining her forces,” Damian stage whispers, loud enough for everyone in the room to hear. 

One of them chuckles, and the other flips them off and she lays down a card.

Tim rolls his eyes, even though he feels the same. “Because they act like human beings instead of soulless cultists?”

Suren shrugs. “She is more than strict enough for me.”

Damian grumbles something along the lines of ‘spoiled little prince.’

They pass into a bigger room that looks like it might be a meeting room of sorts with fold-up chairs leaning against the walls. The mundanity of it, like he’s at a low-budget summer camp, feels like a punch in the gut to Tim. He wonders again if this is all an elaborate setup. One more hallway, and they’re at a metal door embedded in stone. Suren lighty raps his knuckles against the door. “Someone special to see you, Sir.”

“Enter,” a voice calls from within. 

Suren opens the door (yeah, it’s not a fancy automated door, Talia has  _ really _ settled for less with this base), and inside is Talia, moving from a meditation pose to her full height with her signature grace. Her eyes widen theatrically in surprise when she recognizes Damian, and she rushes to the doorway, one hand half-raised towards him.

“My child,” she says, and steps forward, but stops, and assumes a more reserved pose. “It is good to see you. What brings you here so suddenly?” Her eyes flit to Tim, clearly not happy to see him, which he thinks is fair.

“I would like your input on a family issue,” Damian replies. 

Talia’s body raises an eyebrow. “Of course.” She beckons them inside, where she has a small kotatsu set up on the side of the room. 

Tim takes in the space as they walk in. It’s cozier than he would have expected; there’s warm lighting and lingering scent of oolong tea. On one side of the room there are bookshelves, a desk, and a file cabinet. The normalcy of it is surreal. Of course, the wall on the other side of the room is covered in weapons, so that, at least, is familiar ground. 

Talia sinks onto a pillow and addresses Suren. “They tracked you here, did they not?” Suren opens his mouth to reply, but Talia cuts him off. “Clearly we need to discuss your stealth and combat skills. I will find you later.” 

Suren nods and scurries off, shutting the door firmly behind him. Tim snorts, feeling pity for the kid. Then again, they were the ones shut in a room with Talia al Ghul, seemingly by design, so things could be better. 

“Timothy, it’s been a long time,” Talia says coldly, gesturing to a place across from her. 

Tim sinks down, giving her a wary look. He hasn’t interacted with her since Damian’s death a few years ago. Even though he knows she hasn’t been working with her father since Damian died, a little bit of progress doesn’t mean that she’s a safe person to be around for either of them. With Ra’s, he has to play it cool, or he loses. With Talia, he’s fine letting her see his contempt. He meets her eyes and lets her read it all on his face. 

She blinks at him long and slow, like a cat, and then turns to Damian. “So tell me, what advice do you seek?” she asks Damian. She keeps her hands folded on the table. 

“I need information about the status of anyone related to me by blood,” Damian says. 

“What sort of information?” Talia responds, raising an eyebrow. “You likely know as much as I do.” 

Damian shakes his head. “First, I need to know about any new developments anyone has experienced within the last twenty-four hours. Including you.” 

“What kind of developments, Damian?” Talia snaps. “I am not a mind reader.”

“I don’t know! Anything odd that might have happened. Anything unusual.” 

“Beyond you coming here after months of ignoring me? Nothing,” Talia says. 

Damian scowls and digs his fingers into his thigh. “Truly? No word from Mara, or grandfather, or anyone else?”

“No.” Talia leans closer to Damian, and Tim tenses, ready to strike. He can see that Talia notices, but she does not acknowledge him beyond that. “What are you really trying to ask, Damian? You are not going to get anywhere being so vague.”

Damian sighs and glances at Tim. Tim shrugs. Damian would know better than Tim whether divulging more information is a safe idea. 

Clearly, Damian decides it’s worth coming clean, because he digs around in the bag that he’s carrying. In a moment, he slides an open notebook onto the table. “I attempted to perform this spell,” he says clinically. “It did not go as intended.” 

Talia’s poise is broken for a moment, her brow furrowing in alarm, but she recovers. “You are not trained in the dark arts.” She seems about to scold him further, but stops herself and picks up the notebook. 

As she lifts it, Tim can see the  _ Cheese Viking _ patterns covering the outside. His breath catches in the beginning of a laugh that dies when Damian shoots him a dark look. 

Her eyes scan the notes, and she flips through page after page, humming and furrowing her brows. At one point, she huffs, either in amusement or scorn. “Very thorough.” 

Tim can see Damian sit up a little straighter, his cheeks a little rosier than before. Talia is even harder to impress than Bruce in some ways, he guesses. 

She reaches what seems to be the last entry and sets the book down on the table, pages open. Tim tries to peer at them from where he sits, even though magic is one of the few subjects he knows very little about. 

“I can see no obvious flaws in your plans, to say nothing of what your execution might have been like,” she says. “But this was a gamble. You got results, just not the ones you sought, yes?”

Damian inclines his head ever so slightly. “Yes.” He drags the collar of his uniform down, revealing the black band around his neck. “A magical miasma appeared around me about an hour after I completed the ritual, and that’s when this appeared.”

Talia frowns. “An hour after? That makes no sense.” Her eyes shift to Tim. “And you, are you just here as an escort?”

“Moral support is what I’d rather call it.” 

“Timothy is here, in part, because the spell affected him as well,” Damian says. “Of course, I had to provide blood for the ritual,” he says, and Talia nods in agreement, “but some time after this black band appeared, the wound was transferred away from me to him.” He pulls off his gauntlet and bares his unmarked arm. Tim pulls off his own gauntlet to show the bandages, but puts his gauntlet back on. 

Talia frowns harder, her eyes searching Damian’s face. “That… makes no sense, my child. That has nothing to do with the spell you performed. Why did you come to me for answers? Surely you know others more versed in the arcane arts than I.” 

Damian huffs impatiently. “You saw the spells. Whoever was affected should have been someone with whom I share blood.”

“Or a blood covenant,” Talia cuts in.

“I would think that I would be aware of those with whom I made a covenant,” Damian sniffs.

“I would think you would know your own family as well,” Talia shoots back. “Though it seems your own blood is not much on your mind these days.”

Damian scowls. “I have had more than enough on my mind. Consider it a point in your favor that you were not.”

“I can decide that for myself,” Talia says, and she places a gentle hand on Damian’s. Tim’s jaw flexes, but he waits. 

Damian seems angry and confused about this new development, but he does not shake her off. “I do need your input. I can’t speak for what happened and who interacted with me when I was too young to remember. That’s the part I was hoping you’d know.” 

Tim’s eyes narrow. Obviously Damian is trying to keep the intended target of the spell secret, but this specific interest in people who had actually  _ interacted _ with him in addition to being related to him is new information. 

Talia frowns. “Aside from myself and your grandfather… Your cousin was in Narda Parbat, but she did not interact with you until you were old enough to remember.” 

“And my uncle?” Damian presses. 

Talia’s eyes narrow. “He’s dead. Why would you need to know of him?” 

Damian’s fingers tap impatiently on the table. “I want to investigate all possibilities.”

Tim manages not to snort. That sort of detective work isn’t really Damian’s strong suit. He’s more of a “go for the nuclear option immediately” type of guy.

Talia shakes her head. “This is a restoration spell, not a resurrection one. It shouldn’t work on the dead.” 

“Mother,” Damian insists. He looks into her eyes. 

She looks back for a long moment, purses her lips, and then she sighs and rubs her temples. “Your uncle met you briefly after you were born, and didn’t interact with you at all until you were six, which I assume you remember. Your aunt…” she trails off. 

Damian frowns. “My… aunt?”

“Yes,” Talia sighs again, looking old. “My half-sister. She died before you were born.” 

“Oh.” Damian says, frowning at the ground. 

Wild, Tim thinks, to straight up not know about entire people you’re related to. 

“And...your sister,” Talia says. 

Damian’s head snaps up, and he pushes away from the table as if he’s about to stand. “What?” he demands. 

Tim’s stomach flips. 

Talia gets up, and she turns and adjusts something on the wall, uselessly, her hands looking for something to do. “You had a twin sister, as well.” 

Tim blinks, taking a deep, steadying breath. Strangely, his first thought is how devastated Bruce would be if he knew he had yet another child that he didn’t know about, let alone a dead one. He forces the train of thought away, determined to stay in the moment. 

“Sister…” Damian stares hard at the table. “You never mentioned.”

“I did not see the use in it.” Talia said, her eyes on the wall. 

Damian looks over at Tim like he just remembered there’s a third person in the room. His expression is partly embarrassed, partly lost, partly something else. 

Tim takes a risk and seeks out Damian’s knee underneath the table, nudging him just a little as a physical reminder that he was not alone. 

Damian does not acknowledge him, but does not bat him away either. 

“To hear your grandfather tell it, you never had a sister at all, considering that she never survived gestation, no matter how many times I tried.”

“Times?” Tim asks. 

Talia gives him a sour look. “Germline gene editing. It often takes a few attempts.”

“You?” Tim says, turning to Damian.

“Of course I was,” Damian sniffs. 

Tim considers telling Damian that maybe he shouldn’t be proud of being the result of unethical human experimentation, but decides it would be counterproductive. He wonders how many versions of Damian there were that died. 

“Are there any other previously-unmentioned family members I should know of?” Damian asks. “Anything else you’d like to share?” He stares hard at the table. 

Talia seats herself at the table again. “Not to my knowledge.”

Damian nods tersely. “If not spells, do you know of any items of the magical persuasion that may be able to help?”

Talia considers, looking relieved at the change of subject. “The things I know of are good for specific purposes. I don’t know what has happened to you, so I’m unsure if they would be of help.”

“Anything that can break bondage over a spirit, or--” he glances at Tim, “something that offers protection?”

Talia’s eyes dart to Tim, and she shrugs, affecting a nonchalant attitude. “Maybe. I will have to think about it.”

Damian narrows his eyes. “What could be stopping you from thinking about it now, Mother?”

“Mostly wondering why you have actually brought  _ him _ here,” Talia says, gesturing towards Tim without looking at him, “when he seems to have nothing to say that you could not have said yourself. What is he doing here?”

“Vibin’,” Tim answers. He finds it funny that just sitting there in silence was so effective at getting under Talia’s skin.

Talia makes a noise of disgust. “Damian, why do you associate with this… Roustabout?”

“I’d consider myself closer to a white-collar worker, actually,” Tim says, having fun. 

“Who I associate with is none of your concern anymore, Mother.” Damian pushes away from the table to stand. Tim moves back from the table as well, but stays seated, keeping his eyes mostly on Talia. 

Talia looks up at her son, her feathers decidedly unruffled by his outburst. “I know that you’ve abandoned your father in favor of... _ this _ ,” she says, gesturing toward Tim. “Consider your development. What does a fellow student have to offer that the master does not?”

Damian huffs. “There is more to my existence than training.”

Talia raises an eyebrow, and looks away, shaking her head. “You have changed much since you left me.” 

“Maybe that’s a good thing,” Damian says, crossing his arms and looking away as well. 

Tim watches Talia’s hands, which clench and unclench on the table. 

She takes in a deep breath and lets it out. “Yes. Maybe it is.”

Damian turns back to her and frowns. “It is?”

“Maybe,” Talia stresses, becoming aloof once again. “I’m glad you came, Damian.”

“So that you could reveal your surveillance on my life?” Damian scoffs. 

“No,” Talia says firmly. “I have been trying to track and counter my father’s movements. I recently tracked his operatives gathering intelligence on your living situation. That’s how I know.”

_ Oh great _ , Tim thinks.  _ Because that’s totally a problem we’re equipped to deal with right now.  _

Damian’s mouth presses into a thin line. “What does he want with me? He’s disowned me many times over.”

“If I knew, I would have told you,” Talia says. 

“Well, that's nice of you,” Tim says dryly. 

“No one was addressing you,” Talia bites out, not even looking at Tim. 

“Mother,” Damian snaps. “If you want to show respect for me, you will show respect for him as well.”

Talia grimaces, but at least looks at Tim. “I’ll take that under consideration.”

“So, do you actually know of any leads we can follow up on, spell-wise?” Tim asks, trying to get them back on track.

Talia walks to her bookshelf and runs her fingers along spines that are cracked and dusty. She pulls a thin volume from a lower shelf and flips through it, her eyes scanning the pages. 

While she’s distracted, Tim nudges Damian under the table and raises his eyebrows in question. 

“Shut up,” Damian mouths. 

Fair enough, then. 

“There is only one thing I can think of that might help you,” Talia says. “The Shadow Casement. It’s a small glass pane that, if you look through it, will act as a window to the unseen.” She walk back to them, and she leans close to Damian’s passenger around his neck, squinting and pursing her lips. “According to this, it will show both enchantments and spirits. Hopefully it will help you discover what is going on.” 

Tim nods, even though he’s not sure what the visual difference between spells and spirits would be. 

“Where can we find this window?” Damian asks. 

“According to this, it is being guarded by a former warder.”

“Warder?” Damian asks. 

“Someone who guides the dead from our world to the afterlife,” Tim says. 

Talia raises her eyebrows, and Damian turns to Tim in surprise, but Tim waves her on. 

“It’s in the hands of a former warder. No one knows much about her or where to find her, but it is said she is ‘fair of hair and skin and has kind eyes’,” Talia reads from her book. “Useless description.”

Tim smirks. “I bet I know who that is.” 

“Do you?” Damian says skeptically. 

“Sometimes I  _ do _ know things,” Tim says dryly. “And people. If nothing else, she might be able to help me figure out where to look.”

“Who is it?” Talia asks. 

Tim looks her up and down, and then he shrugs. “I don’t think I want to tell you.” 

Talia gives him a glare like she’s a soccer mom and he’s a Wal-Mart checker who’s just told her that her coupon isn’t valid. Tim holds her gaze, lifting his eyebrows in a dare.

“Is there anything else we should know?” Damian asks, cutting into the tension. 

Talia snaps her head towards him, her long hair swishing with the movement. “No. That’s all.” 

Damian sniffs, and he searches her face for deception, but doesn’t seem to find any. “Very well. We’ll be going now,” he says, standing. 

“Wait,” Talia says, shooting her hand out towards him. 

Damian scrunches his face up at it. “What?”

“Can I speak to you?” Talia says, and gives Tim a disdainful look. “Alone?”

Tim stands, but doesn’t move. 

Damian waits a long moment and then nods. “Fine.”

Tim’s big brother instincts are in full tilt and it kills him to leave, but he does. With as much grace as he can muster (which is quite a lot), he gets to his feet and leaves, closing the door behind him. 

As soon as it clicks into place, Tim notices Suren emerging from a nearby shadow. 

“Hey,” Suren says. 

“Hey,” Tim says back. “Can I help you?”

Tim wonders if Suren was trying to eavesdrop the whole time or just waiting for them. Maybe both. 

“Yeah, um,” Suren says, meeting Tim’s eyes, blushing, and glancing away. 

_ Oh, cute, _ Tim thinks.  _ But is it me, or is it Damian? _

“I was wondering if you could give me Damian’s number? I didn’t have a phone the last time I saw him, and we’ve been out of touch, but I have a phone now, so,” he says, trying for all the world to sound casual and failing hard. 

“How about you give me  _ your _ number?” Tim says. “Because I’m not giving out his number without his permission.”

“Yes, definitely,” Suren says, and pulls off the backpack that he acquired earlier. 

Tim peers inside curiously, and Suren notices and pulls the bag open wider to let more light in. 

“I don’t fully understand what it is,” Suren admits. He removes what looks like a small briefcase, and opens that to reveal several neatly arranged, opaque vials. “I know that she uses them as part of her gene therapy project.”

“Gene therapy?” Tim says, trying to sound neutral. Talia is weird about genetics, Damian being exhibit A of her father’s eugenics project. 

“Yeah,” Suren says, tucking the precious cargo away. “We’ve been working with a village north of here. They have a high rate of cancer cases since there’s a textiles factory upstream from them. So we’re helping with that.”

“You’re… providing medical aid?” Tim says, and he barely keeps the skepticism out of his voice. 

“That, and we’re going to make sure the factory is removed.” Suren pulls out a scrap of paper and a stick of charcoal and starts scribbling down numbers. 

From the tone of ‘removed,’ Tim assumes their methods might involve a cheeky murder here and there. 

Suren hands Tim the scrap of paper with a number scrawled on it. “Thank you,” he says as Tim takes it. “I don’t think I caught your name, your actual name?”

“Tim,” he answers, pocketing the paper. “Nice to meet you.”

“Nice to meet you t--”

The door bursts open, and Damian storms out, stomping-but-not-quite-running away with a scowl on his face.

“Damian,” Tim and Suren both say and start to follow, but Tim is stopped by an iron-hard grip on his bicep. 

He hides his wince of pain and turns his head to find Talia there, glaring icy daggers.

Suren scurries away, compelled by the desire to follow Damian and to escape Talia’s murderous vibes as quickly as possible. 

“Can I help you?” Tim says icily. 

“He has chosen you,” Talia hisses, tightening her grip even further. “Do not abandon him. Do not betray his trust. Or you will regret it.”

She releases him, and then she returns to her study and slides the door shut behind her, leaving Tim alone. 

Tim rubs at his arm for a second. He can already tell he’ll have deep purple bruises there. Great. Then off he goes, looking for Damian. 

Working back the way he came, he eventually finds Damian and Suren talking quickly and quietly in the meeting room they passed through earlier, their hushed words being distorted from bouncing off the high walls. They both fall silent when they notice Tim approaching. 

“Everything okay?” Tim asks Damian. 

“Quite,” Damian says primly, though his anger-red cheeks and clenched fists betray his temper. “Shall we be moving on?”

_______________________________________________________

They bid their goodbyes to Suren and let him escort them out. Damian is relieved to finally breathe fresh air again. It’s midday now, the sun directly overhead casting harsh outlines of the foliage onto the hard-packed dirt below his feet. 

Thankfully, stealth is no longer an issue, so Damian whistles for Goliath as they walk away from the entrance. 

Knowing that Goliath will take a minute or so to fly up to them, Damian sits on a nearby fallen tree. Timothy joins him. 

“What did she say?” Timothy asks casually. 

Damian stares hard at the dirt. Talia certainly did have a lot to say. She explained how she finally returned to the goals she had when she was young, drawing on her medical background to help people. Damian accused her, correctly, of intentionally having Suren lead them here, and her response that she didn’t know how else to see him. 

Damian had to admit that a formal invitation would not have worked, and that he probably could have found her any time that he wanted to before this point if he’d tried. 

And after all that, when he tried to leave, she apologized. Something that had not happened in all Damian’s years on this earth. It infuriated him. 

“Not much,” Damian lies lyingly. The memory of his mother’s sad eyes makes him chew on the inside of his cheek.

Timothy, thankfully, doesn’t call him on the obvious mistruth.

“Oh, I don’t know if he already talked to you about this, but Suren wanted me to give this to you,” Timothy says, handing Damian a scrap of paper from his belt. 

There’s a number written on it in slightly smudged charcoal. 

“Thanks,” Damian says, his voice falling flatter than intended. 

Goliath lands only a few feet away, always quieter than one would expect for a creature of his bulk. Damian strides to him and runs his hands along the beast‘s mane. “Good boy. What did you do while we were gone?”

Goliath snuffles and then burps in Damian’s face. “Ugh,” Damian says, and then hops onto Goliath’s back, reaching a hand down to Timothy, who reaches out for a second before retracting his hand. 

“Wait. Have you gotten any injuries?”

Damian, on account of his bad mood, almost says something vicious, but manages to rein himself in. He knows that Timothy is doing this not because of overprotectiveness, but because of a relevant, practical problem. One that he created. 

“No,” Damian says honestly. “Nothing I know of.”

“Good.” Timothy hesitates. “Full disclosure, I have some bruises on my arm.” He brushes his fingers over his left upper arm. “Just, you know. Before we make contact. Be on the lookout in case it switches.”

Damian nods. “That makes sense. This may yet be a two-way street.” 

This time, Timothy accepts the hand up and settles himself behind Damian. Goliath grunts and shifts his paws to accommodate the new weight. 

“Home, boy,” Damian says with a scratch behind Goliath’s ear, and then they’re off. 

Timothy falls asleep only a few minutes into the ride, before they’ve even reached altitude. It worries Damian. Thankfully, Damian himself is not tired, which is lucky considering that he hasn’t slept in over twenty-four hours, so he is able to hold Timothy’s arm again as a safety measure. 

Damian’s ears pop when they soar over the cloud layer. He rubs at his left upper arm, checking for any new tenderness, but he doesn’t notice anything yet. He really hopes that he takes Timothy’s bruise. Having an equitable arrangement was much preferable to Timothy bearing the punishment for all of Damian’s mistakes. 

He can’t stop thinking about the moment he saw his own knife wound on Timothy’s arm, followed closely by seeing Timothy and Father yelling at each other. His fault. His fault. He’s caught in an infinite loop of the two memories. 

His mother’s voice when she said ‘sister’ joins the mantra. 

Sisters, brothers. Damian’s DNA is cursed. Those who share it die in the womb or grow up deformed only to die protecting Damian. His head is above water because he stands on the corpses of his drowned siblings. 

Damian is surprised when the Gotham coastline comes into view. The time passes so quickly in the sky. The sun is going down, casting long, hazy shadows across the buildings.

Even though Goliath is gentle in his landing as always, Timothy wakes when Goliath’s claws scratch the pavement. 

“H--wha,” he says. 

“Indeed,” Damian agrees, jumping onto the rough concrete below. 

Timothy has to shake himself awake, but recovers quickly and hops down as well. He gives Goliath an affectionate pat before heading inside. 

Once the door is closed behind him, Damian presses a kiss between Goliath’s eyes. “Thank you,” he says, rubbing one of Goliath’s ears. 

Goliath nuzzles him, and Damian sighs. He figures it is no coincidence that Goliath is the first (and one of the few) that has forgiven him for what he’s done considering that he’s a simple animal. If the beast were more capable of critical thought and had a moral compass, maybe he would not have been so understanding, and Damian would be dead. It would have been fair enough.

But no, they are here. Together. Damian cannot find it in himself to complain about that just now, with Goliath’s feather-soft fur tickling his cheeks.

Damian presses his forehead to Goliath’s for a long, sweet, silent moment, and then pulls away. “Go on, boy. Go stretch your wings.” 

Goliath manages to lick Damian’s face before he flies away, off to somewhere more forgiving for a creature of his persuasion. Gotham really isn’t the place for dragon-bats, after all. 

Damian goes inside himself, eager to get into clean clothes and temperature-controlled air. As he moves through the process on autopilot, he sends Suren a text. 

Suren Darga  
  
**Today** 7:22 PM  
I’m back in Gotham.  
  
****Good to hear. I am glad you came to visit  
  
I can’t say I feel the same, but it was good to hear from you again.   
  
****I understand. I know this might sound weird, but your mom really took me by surprise by taking me in and letting me work for her, considering our family history  
  
****We are not heroes like you are, but I think I am finally getting to do some good. I can see why you like it  
  
I wouldn’t say I’m the final authority on heroism, but I think I can make room for you as a fellow hero.  
  
****Thank you!  
  
****Do you think you will come by again soon?  
  
Don’t count on it.  
  
Feel free to contact me if you would like my assistance in your work.  
  
****I was thinking we could get ice cream. There is a little store in town that has my favorite flavor  
  
Hm.  
  


Damian wonders if his mother is working Suren now solely to use his friendship with Suren as an excuse to bring him within range of her. The thought makes him see red. 

By the time Damian changes out of his uniform makes it inside the apartment proper, he can hear the sound of the electric kettle going. Timothy is there, leaning against the counter, his hands gripping the edge of the granite on either side of him. 

Damian’s eyes are drawn to the dark hand-shaped bruise on Timothy’s left bicep. 

“Any change?” Timothy asks. 

Damian shakes his head helplessly. 

Timothy nods. 

Of everyone save perhaps Bruce, Timothy is the hardest to read. Damian has to constantly second-guess his perceptions, and he doesn’t like it. Right now, he knows there’s something happening under the surface, but he doesn’t know what it might be. Disappointment? Anger? The uncertainty eats at him. 

“That’s great,” Timothy says. “Now we can tentatively guess that the transfer only goes one way, which kind of makes sense since I didn’t cast the spell.”

“Yeah,” Damian agrees limply, his gut churning. 

Calfred nudges against Damian’s legs and meows in utter desolation. 

Damian scoops him up and strokes him. “I’m sorry that I left you alone so long.”

Yes, Damian decides. He probably gets along with animals so much because they don’t have moral compasses. 

“How did you know what a warder is?” Damian asks, moving to sit on the couch with his cat. 

“A friend of mine was one, Greta Hayes, alias Secret,” Timothy says, starting to half-talk to himself as he puts a teabag and sugar into a mug. “She used to work with me in Young Justice. And she fits your mom’s description. I’m surprised that she’s holding onto this darkness window thing, I thought she didn’t want to do any of this stuff anymore. It’ll probably be a little hard to get a hold of her, though, since she’s really bad about ghosting people.”

He smiles dumbly at Damian like he’s just made a terrible joke.

“Ah,” Damian replies dumbly, not getting the humor. He feels like he should ask a question, but he can’t think of anything. 

Timothy’s face falls into something more serious. “Are you okay?” he asks, moving to sit on the other side of the couch. “That was a lot, with the whole secret sister thing and whatever it was that Talia said to you while I was gone.”

Damian purses his lips, his eyes moving to Timothy’s arm. “Did she give you that bruise on your arm?”

“Yes.”

Damian nods. He decides to tell Timothy. It couldn’t hurt. He rubs behind Calfred’s ears. 

A minute later, he still hasn’t actually opened his mouth. Timothy waits patiently, silently. Damian takes a deep breath, opens his mouth, and pushes the words out. 

“She tried to apologize.”

Calfred stretches and scurries off. Without anything to do, Damian’s hands hold each other in his lap. 

“Is that a good thing?” Timothy asks quietly. 

“I…” Damian leans back into the couch, remembering the weird look on his mother’s face, the foriegn words she pushed into the air between them. “I don’t know.”

Timothy puts a hand on his shoulder. 

“I don’t know.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i love secret so much she's so spooky. all of the spooky girls are gonna be in this one
> 
> i went and made some minor changes to chapter one fyi. my goal is to update monthly at the slowest, so fingers crossed on that.

**Author's Note:**

> please let me know if there's triggers that i should consider tagging. 
> 
> i love to chat! if you have questions about specific issue numbers i reference or whatever, definitely let me know. please feel free to start a conversation in the comments, at [my twitter](https://twitter.com/nimagine99), or at [my tumblr](https://nimagine.tumblr.com). 
> 
> the more attention i get, the more likely i'll be to actually get all the way through my outline. jsyk... 
> 
> as always, thanks for reading~


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